Made to Last
by counterpunch
Summary: Quinn survives the accident, more or less. This is what happens after. And then after that. The road from McKinley to Yale wasn't an easy one. It only gets harder from here.
1. Chapter 1

It should have come as a relief; that all this could finally be dead and gone and buried.

But life was never kind to Quinn Fabray.

So as Quinn lay on the hospital bed with half a body, it didn't hurt _more_, seeing the ring on Rachel's finger. She was prepared for that. After all, she was on her way to see it happen.

She'd been steeling herself against Rachel Berry for years now, with varying methods and levels of success. A few more weeks didn't seem like a big deal.

Rachel Berry was always just a dream. Rachel Hudson was a fact.

Quinn Fabray doesn't argue with facts. She adjusts to them. She accepts and moves on. Picking up the pieces comes later. There's no breakdown, just a quiet, empty inevitability and a slow walk forward.

Which was ironic now, considering. _A slow roll forwards_, she quietly amended.

Needless to say, with all the painkillers in her system, she was surprised that it still hurt. Somewhere in her mouth, her teeth throbbed.

Logically, she knows teeth and hair have no sensitivity and are dead cells- just protein and enamel, connected by nerves. But since her nerve endings are dulled, she concludes her teeth must be throbbing and tries not to think too much about the metaphors involved.

It matches the sensation in her chest. Which following similar logic, is also numb, but in a completely different way.

Quinn knows it was the last nail in the coffin. Not for herself - being with Rachel was never even a real possibility she would have let herself fathom.

That ring was the end of the phenomenon that was Rachel Berry. It had been a slow progression, happening over time through a buildup of small moments. Like not noticing autumn is over until you blink, and every branch on every tree is suddenly naked and stark and the world is barren.

But Quinn noticed. Because the closer Quinn came to leaving Lima, the farther Rachel seemed to get. It was backwards. It was wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen like that.

Quinn accepted her fate long ago, she told Rachel as much that day at the piano. There never was another life for her. And now that it was within her grasp…

The last few weeks seemed more like a dream than anything. Things were going so _well_ and Quinn felt like she could _breathe_.

That relief, even if it was just for a moment, ruined it. So of course if was only a matter of time before everything went to hell. Because after deciding to swallow everything down _one _last time - because Rachel was getting _married_ and she was tired of being _spiteful_ - she got hit by a truck.

Nothing good happens without consequence.

Except, for Quinn Fabray, **_consequence_** has nothing to do with **_good_**, and she was just Icarus, flying closerclosercloser to the sun.

She burnt up.

* * *

Her hands stung. Constantly. They were rubbed raw, even if she could only go up and down the hospital corridors. After a week in the bed she was frustrated, by the second, she couldn't keep still. By the third, if she didn't start moving (even if it would only be her arms), she would have lost it. She needed to feel her lungs burning. _Something_ needed to feel normal.

Calluses were supposed to form. But if Quinn had learned anything about hardening parts of herself over time, it's that it takes too long and by then, the damage is usually already done.

Upon her return home, navigating through a newly placed ramp in the garage, Artie gave her a pair of gloves and a promise of wheelie lessons (to be redeemed at a time of her choosing).

She stared at the package and managed to blink without crying. He was still sitting there though, and since she didn't trust herself to speak without screaming, gave him a soft kiss on the check instead. He blushed and warned her she might not be so nice when faced with the steepest ramp in Lima. "I'll curse you to hell, but it won't be personal," she assured him.

The gloves stayed unopened on top of her dresser. As much as her hands hurt, she didn't want them to feel better. The pain focused her. She didn't want to have to _get used to it _because as long as she looks down and sees her legs, she'll remember splitting them in the air and dancing, and will probably never_ get_ _used to it._

So she won't. She'll accept it, adjust, and move on. A slow roll forwards.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, there's no bedroom on the first floor of her house.

Which meant the only option was to install a rather expensive stairlift to get Quinn upstairs. It was mortifying and embarrassing- like she was _geriatric_- a permanent fixture to blatantly remind her of the uselessness of her body. How easily she took things for granted before, like something as frustratingly simple as going to her room.

She couldn't even use it herself yet, too weak to hoist herself from the wheelchair to the seat. She tried to do it once without her mother, but ended up slipping and cracking her lip on the bottom step.

A bowl dropped in the kitchen and Judy had run in half a second later, shoes clacking on the floor. She scrambled to find Quinn crumpled in a heap at the base of the steps. Immediately she bent down, but at the barest touch on her shoulder, Quinn lashed out.

"Don't touch me," she hissed, because the anger was comforting in its presence. She knew this feeling; for the longest time it was all she had.

But when she saw her mother recoil in something akin to fear, like Quinn was some sort of feral creature, the rage evaporated. Left in its place was a familiar deflated, weary ache. A tiring misery that combined with the anger, had allowed her to endure in the past.

But there was a compassion, this time, that warmed instead of burned. She decided to give into it, because she was tired of feeling so _cold_ and so _empty_ all the time. There wasn't anything left. She and her mother may be strangers but they couldn't be estranged forever. Not now.

"I'm sorry," Quinn'd whispered, because that was all the strength she had.

Visitors came almost immediately. At the hospital, everyone from glee came together, it dulled the awkwardness of individual visits. It's easy for a group to smile pityingly, when the burden of conversation is shared and no one's counting on just you to make things feel better. Even if only for a few minutes.

Once she went home though, things were much more intimate. People came in chunks. Some people didn't show up at all. And some people showed up but were never really _there_.

"It's like _Up,_" Brittany'd said brightly, upon looking at the chairlift. "You're like Mr. Fredricksen."

Santana snorted. "That must make Berry the little Japanese toddler. Except he had better social skills. And was useful."

If Santana knew her words twisted deeply, she didn't show it.

Rachel came with Finn, Blaine, and Kurt. She showed up with Brittany and Santana. With Tina and Mercedes. But she never came on her own. If Quinn were honest with herself, it was a relief. Parts of her were numb and aching, and it had everything and nothing to do with Rachel Berry. She didn't have the strength or energy to deal with it all. There's only so much a girl can handle.

So she chose to ignore the way her heart thudded dully at the fake smile plastered atop Rachel's clouded eyes when she stood with Brittany and Santana, holding a fruit basket.

At Santana's words, Rachel simply ducked her head without retort.

"Santana…" she said wearily. "Enough." Everything seemed so small and _petty_ at this point, she just didn't care anymore.

"Don't worry, Quinn. Mr. Fredricksen still saw the world and had big adventures. It doesn't matter if you can't walk. You can fly, just like he did."

Brittany stole the air and words out of her lungs and she froze, unable to speak. What would she even even _say_ to something like that?

After a moment, Santana cleared her throat and said "Britt, that has to be the most nauseatingly sweet thing you've ever said. I think I just got a cavity. Q, I'll just tack a dentist visit onto your medical bills, ok? At this point, it'll barely make a dent. Then we'll be even."

Quinn choked out a laugh through the lump in her throat, grateful for the out Santana gave them. "Took you long enough to cash in on that. The boob job was almost two years ago, I thought you were going to hold that over me forever."

"It'd seem kind of tacky, now. Whatever, I'm doing that leaf thing. It's a lot harder to call in favors when we're living in different states, anyways. This is mostly purely selfish."

"Mostly?"

"Yeah, the rest is pity for your gimpy ass."

Rachel looks horrified at their exchange. Quinn grins genuinely for the first time since her life flipped upside-down two times along the highway. Some things never change.

"You keep pitying my gimpy ass, I'll pants you in the hallway. Don't think I won't."


	2. Chapter 2

School isn't as difficult in the ways she thought it'd be. She uses different entrances, depending on where the ramps are, but everything else is basically the same. Going to school is just classes, which involve sitting (an activity she now excels at), and she'd taken chemistry last year so there were no high stools to worry about.

What's hardest now is how she gets there. She doesn't have a car anymore, not that she could drive it now, anyways. The district, strapped for cash, doesn't have a school bus with a lift.

She quietly gave thanks to the fact that Artie's already paved a path through this nightmare and is able to help navigate her through it. She took more than her _own _abilities for granted.

Mr. Abrams had already arranged to pick Quinn up for school. "It's been lonely, just us men, all these years," he'd said on her first morning back. "We appreciate the company."

She instantly forgave Artie for every time he was a prick the moment he placed a hot cup of coffee into her shaking hands and helped buckle her in.

They pass the busses and student parking lot, pulling around to a mostly ignored ramp on the far side of McKinley. She recognizes the area. She spent most of the beginning of the year here smoking and brooding in silence, flicking cigarettes and wondering why she couldn't just drift away with the ash.

That's all she's going to be for a while - floating, like dust motes in the air; aimless and invisible.

Shockingly, it hadn't been that hard to defer.

It just meant delaying what she never thought was real in the first place. Her whole life had been shackled to one reality. All she had was all she knew, and she didn't know anything that was _better_. There was no taste of actual freedom, just the promise of it.

Even when she'd been shackled to a future and life she never wanted (but thought she deserved), it was of her own construction. Now, there was nothing. Despite how badly she itched to leave, there was no escaping the fact that in a few short months, she's never be ready to live on her own at Yale. There was no such thing as independence anymore. Not ever.

Now, Quinn simply clings to each minute. Because minutes pass into hours, hours into days, and a minute is easier to hold onto than the vastness of a year.

Quinn clung to minutes the way she'd clung to Beth's fingers after she was born: desperately and without absolution.

It reminded her of that moment, back in the hospital not too long ago. When she'd heard Elmo foggily through the veil of medication and woke up a few days later to the sight of her daughter eating applesauce. She saw, for the first time, that there are some things more _important_than the past and cried silently, as the two-year old drooled blissfully unawares.

It was the first time she'd felt anything close to okay since losing consciousness, broken, on the side of the road.

Quinn knows she can hold onto minutes. Because the ghost of Beth's touch lingers on her skin, and now she gets to see her daughter every other week. It's a start.

So she wheels herself up that ramp and another day begins.

* * *

Her entire life has been an exercise in bracing herself; for who she was and what she couldn't be, for what she wanted but couldn't ever have, for what she thought she deserved, and all the things she didn't.

Lucy hurt. Rachel Berry hurt. Her Father hurt. Beth hurt. Being _Quinn _hurt. She'd been accepting the pain for years now. What she didn't expect to throw her for a loop was graduation- this was never in her plan; it was the one thing she could always count on, walking across that stage.

She almost didn't attend, but certain gossip queens had somehow found out she was planning on skipping the ceremony and they made it their business to rally the glee troops. It was easy to say no to herself, but whether she said yes to them out of sheer exhaustion or real affection was less clear.

Glee might be a family, but it was a dysfunctional, borderline abusive one. If anyone would know, it'd be Quinn. Both families she'd been a part of had come to blows over her at some point, but at least glee's never left bruises.

As she sat in a chair she'd never get up from, bitterly watching her peers cross the stage, shake hands with their teachers and accept diplomas all at the same time (as if it were nothing to juggle so many simple actions), she couldn't help but feel a pang of pity for someone that wasn't her.

Their wedding rings twinkled in the sun, sparkling like Rachel used to. They might get out of here, but they'd never escape Lima.

For a girl so solid in character and ambition, whom Quinn's spent the most tumultuous years of her life loving, the Rachel Berry here on this stage quaked through Quinn's being the hardest and crumbled upon exiting.

The Rachel Berry wearing a red cap and gown walking toward her with a smile was nothing like the one Quinn imagined in the deepest corners of her heart walking toward her in a white dress matching her own.

They hugged, Quinn still hating how the newfound height difference interfered, before Rachel tore her gaze away and she bounced over to her fathers and Finn. Quinn rolled back to her mom, grateful for the few hours of quiet until the glee gang meets for midnight milkshakes.

* * *

The summer passed without incident.

There were a couple get-togethers with everyone throughout the summer, and it was good to not be by herself for a few hours. These people were her friends, after all. Mostly there were pool parties where Quinn would lie out in a bikini, reading month-old magazines, and realizing it was the most blissfully _normal_ action ever- that no one could tell that the legs tanning below her on the pool chair didn't _work_. Other times she'd sit on the pool steps with her bottom half in the water, trying to ignore how the wheelchair parked a few feet behind her felt like a cage.

Quinn's upper arms got stronger, but there was no cheer camp, and she couldn't lifeguard or babysit like before. Not many homes in Lima had accessable houses, and no matter how much parents trusted their children to brush their teeth and go to bed, they still wanted someone to be able to check up on their kids at night.

So she spent most of her time on Brittany and Santana's couches, watching endless movies and practicing her braiding techniques on Santana's long brown hair, torn between wishing it were Rachel's and being disgusted at her sentimentality.

It's _hair_. It's _dead_.

But then Quinn thinks back to that first visit in the hospital and everything surrounding it, and forces herself to focus on whatever's on tv instead.

A few weeks and a wrung-out Instant Netflix account later, Brittany starts getting board games because she claims she can smell their brains rotting from inside their skulls.

First is Bananagrams, because Brittany liked the shape of the bag. After two drinks, Brittany outplays them both with words like 'loquacious', 'quagmire', and 'decimal'. "The decimal is completely destroyed by the hundreds space. That's how the Romans defeated the Goths."

Taboo is great, whether sober or inebriated. They played for about an hour then hid the buzzer in the couch cushions to be rediscovered once they've forgotten about it.

They drink wine and play Monopoly, which is a lot more fun when Santana curses like a drunk matador and completely owns the board, taking their money with relish, no matter how fake it is. "This is just a precursor to my future, get used to it, _chorras_."

Two minutes into starting Operation, they're all doubled over, having devolved into a laughing fit over the buzzing noises. They wipe tears from their eyes and make up new body pieces. Quinn doesn't even care that it takes both Brittany and Santana's combined motor functions to prop her upright against the couch.

They finish the tequila.


	3. Chapter 3

Everyone soon dropped like flies.

Rachel, Kurt, and Finn were off to New York by late August. Santana, even earlier, to cheer practice in Kentucky. Puck and Mike, to the west coast. Before she left, Mercedes came by with a container of the homemade chicken and greens Quinn and her growing belly had loved so much that year. They sat on the back porch, eating in a mostly comfortable silence.

"I missed you, you know," Mercedes says abruptly, after two drumsticks. "I know things are hard, Quinn. I knew they _were_. But I'd hoped, after everything, that I wouldn't just be some stranger."

Quinn raises her head from her plate but takes the time to finish chewing slowly.

"I know."

Mercedes looks at her painfully.

"It's not-" Quinn starts, before huffing and starting again. "It's not _you_, Mercedes. That's just how I work."

Mercedes puts her fork down and shakes her head, "Quinn…"

Quinn always knew she liked Mercedes for a reason because once her face pleads to drop it, the lecture on the back of the other girl's tongue is swallowed immediately.

Mercedes stares at her instead, and a silent agreement passes between them - Quinn to try and Mercedes to give her the space to do so. She caves with a grin and gives Quinn a pointed look, "Okay, but that's all kinds of messed up."

She'd forgotten, over the past two years, just how much Mercedes comforted her. It smarts, suddenly, realizing that just when she'd found her again, she'd be gone so soon.

The rest of the meal is occupied with light conversation and when Mercedes leaves, Quinn feels full, and it has nothing to do with the food.

Weeks later, she sits on the porch every so often, thinking back to that meal, and reminds herself to _talk_ to her mother, to _not _shut down, to call Mercedes and Santana.

To _talk_, instead of just speaking.

* * *

It hurt, being home, having to face the additions, adjustments, and tiptoeing concern of her mother. So she went to the one place she knew she'd be able to retreat quietly. If Lucy could disappear here, maybe Quinn could, too. She spent a lot of time at the library.

Here, the silence soothed her. It helped pacify the eagerness and thirst for academics that propelled her through six AP classes, two during a pregnancy.

There were some nights Quinn had read aloud from textbooks until her voice gave out, whispering secrets of chemistry and European history to the growing child in her belly. Beth held volumes in her head before she was even born.

Quinn was smart, no doubt about that, she placed fourth in her class for a reason. She couldn't afford to let her mind atrophy while Yale loomed in the future. Yale, with its stately grounds, renowned stature, and arduous academics. Yale, a challenge Quinn could meet.

It would be as clean, fresh, and innocent a start as that first New Haven snowfall in winter.

As September approaches, Quinn thinks of snow and goes to the library. It isn't dissimilar to when she was a Cheerio, having her mind empty but sharp, by keeping her body busy.

It was what she always craved: a way out. From everything, even for a few empty minutes at a time. Athletics gave her it once.

Now, she reads.

She loses herself for hours at a time, taking refuge in anywhere else but her own head, stopping when her eyes burn and stomach grumbles.

After being a permanent fixture there for a few weeks, one of the librarians approaches her and offers a part-time position. Quinn accepts on the spot.

She organizes the shelving carts, puts away the books she can reach, mans the front desk, and checks out books.

Sometimes people from her old church come in, squinting at her sideways, feeling righteous that she's gotten what she deserved. _See? Quinn fell from grace and now can't even stand up._ They tuck their children under their arms and usher them past quickly, _a lesson to all those who think of sinning. _

The cross around her neck feels like an anchor but whether it's weighing her down or keeping her ashore changes with the tide.

_If only they knew the rest of it, _she thinks.

But Quinn finds routine and sinks into it. She works at the library and rotates spending time with the two other blondes in her life.

She gets to see Beth once a week. Shelby upped visiting privileges, saying Quinn should take advantage of the time spent at home. She doesn't argue, even though the visits are never unsupervised. It's more for Beth's safety than of any threat from Quinn. She just can't get everywhere in the house by herself in the chair, and two-year olds are precociously sneaky on newfound legs. It still brings unparalleled joy to her life, because every time she gets to hold her baby girl, even if it's on knees Quinn can't feel, she feels _whole._

Every Tuesday night Quinn sees Brittany. She feel less isolated, sharing the burden and difficulty of being left behind. The start of the school year may have only been harder for Brittany. Santana made them swear, before she left, to make a promise- to make it through, maybe lonely, but not alone. So Tuesdays Quinn tutors Brittany, and afterwards they eat popcorn and watch 'Project Runway'.

Two days a week that comfort her, but they make all the difference in the world. Quinn might be stuck in Lima, but she's not left on her own.

* * *

It's late October and Quinn is refilling baskets of candy corn and Hershey Kisses near the plastic pumpkins in the library when a familiar face passes by.

It hits her, like a truck, seeing Rachel all of a sudden, without preamble or preparation, and Quinn's heart seizes painfully in her chest. It's been easier, not seeing her every day. At school, Quinn had been ready- _knew_ what to expect around every corner and during every song, but here, it came out of the blue. Her defenses had months to atrophy. And who was _she_ to come waltzing in here for no reason, taking Quinn's heart back into custody after weeks of being _gone?_

She stays quiet, watching Rachel walk to the stacks, glancing down at a scrap of paper as she goes.

Facebook only provides so much information, not that Quinn has much interest in checking it often anyways. It was one thing to know what her peers were doing, off in the world, it was another to_ see_ it. Every time she logged in seemed like an exercise in masochism, but when had that ever stopped her before? Sometimes though, she can't help herself late at night, when she's in bed and the lights are off, and she can't see where she ends and the shadows begin.

She saw Santana flipping in mid-air, posing with her new squad, drooling on her textbooks asleep at the library, working her butt off like Quinn knew she always did.

She saw Puck flexing in front of pools with women tanning underneath, proudly standing next to a van bearing his name.

She saw Rachel in New York, in snapshots of the picnics her and Finn had in the park, smiling under marquees, next to show posters, in rehearsing backstage, starting her life.

Mercedes and Santana wrote emails. Puck sometimes Skyped when she was with Beth.

Quinn clicked 'like' on Rachel's statuses, it was all she could afford to share.

So when Rachel Hudson walks through the Lima Public Library unannounced on a Wednesday, (when Quinn knows full well she's supposed to be in Introduction to Theatre Studies) Quinn's carefully constructed bubble implodes. She puts down the candy shakily and wheels herself into the staff office, desperate to busy herself, to do anything- _anything _but have to deal with this girl walking back into her life and making her chest ache all over again.

It's not easy when every bad dream is triggered by another, wrapping Quinn in layers of nightmares. She hears glass shattering and the sickening, wrenching screech of metal, and in a swirl of panic and she's pinned by her own body. One painful breath later, she's wearing white but choking and drowning in blood, staining the dress. She can't get up and her lungs are burning, but it's just the trache tube and the monitors are beeping, and somehow Rachel's in the passenger seat, staring blankly asking "where are you, where are you, where are you" and Quinn doesn't _know _and she wakes up gasping.

There's no sleep for Quinn those nights.

It's not helping now, as she hides in the office, trying to calm herself off the cliff of a panic attack, filing paperwork and Inter-Library Loans until Joan comes in to ask her about lunch.

She asks someone else to finish filling the candy.


	4. Chapter 4

It gnawed on her, for a few days.

She was distracted during her visit with Beth, hating how just _being_ there reminds her of how tangled up her life has become with Rachel's and how that's interfering with this special, intimate time.

She's distracted and makes stupid math mistakes while tutoring Brittany.

It rolls around on her brain at home, when she's trying to fall asleep.

She lasts three days before looking up Rachel's holds on the library's computer system.

_Fighting for Your Marriage: Positive Steps for Preventing Divorce and Preserving a Lasting Love. Markman, Howard - _Due Date: 12.17. 2012

_Taking Space: How to Use Separation to Explore the Future of Your Relationship Buchicchio, Robert _- Due Date 12.17. 2012

Quinn would like to say she's stunned.

Quinn would _like _to be disappointed. It's not like she's still so petty as to _hope _their marriage would fail. At least, not for the wrong reasons, not anymore.

It's not _fun_ to watch someone you love _hurt. _It's not _easy_, having spoken and tried to protect them but to no avail.

God, she never _listened._

Quinn doesn't run into Rachel again, but by the time December rolls around, the books get renewed.

Christmas isn't the horrendous time tradition has trained her to expect. The Pierces refuse anything less than Quinn and Judy's presence Christmas Eve, and the night is spent with light and laughter, Brittany reenacting all twelve nights of Christmas through charades, and there's eggnog aplenty. She's can't remember a time there ever was a warmer Christmas. She decides to ignore how sad that is.

The next morning over brunch at the Cochran house, Quinn gives Beth a Playskool Sesame Street set and a CD of her singing lullabyes wrapped in a bow. She receives a toothy smile and Shelby's trust in return - a set of house keys. There are tears blurring her vision, and she can't even see the gift certificate to Barnes & Noble that's stuffed in the box as well but it doesn't matter because a year ago this moment seemed impossible. She thinks her skin might break with how tightly she's gripping the keys.

All in all, she reflects later while watching _Grey's Anatomy_ with her mom, despite _everything _this past year, it wasn't that bad of a Christmas.

* * *

Over the span of a few days, everyone else trickled back in. Some semesters ended earlier than others, but for New Years, there's a party lined up at Puck's.

While she's excited about the party (it's the most social she's been in months), a larger part is apprehensive. She managed to see Puck and Santana over Thanksgiving weekend, but it's going to be the first time she's seen everyone else since the summer.

There's Rachel.

There's everyone else.

Quinn takes a shot within a minute of getting inside to dull the anxiety.

Brittany throws her a look, "It's 9:30."

Quinn scowls, "Whatever, it's not like I have to worry about driving home."

Brittany tilts her head and shrugs, admitting the point, "True, but you do have to worry about _me_ driving you home. So be nice and stop being cranky." Santana hollers at them to stop lingering in the doorway and join the party already.

The cup in her hands helps numb the irritation at having to face the pity and pinched smiles directed downwards as her peers hold tales of the first years of the rest of their lives on the tips of their tongues. She sits through endless, repetitive conversations and locks her feelings behind a fake smile and feigned interest, redirecting conversation to hide the truth behind her teeth.

She has nothing to share in return. Her life is static.

But there's an extra set of keys in her purse and a pulse beating in her neck, and it reminds her she's lucky to even _be_ here. To exist at all.

Just then, a warm hand pats her on the shoulder and she swirls around to be met with the smiling, dopey face of Sam Evans.

"Hey you," he says, leaning down into a hug. He's warm and loving and she closes her eyes, remembering in a rush why she loved him.

He was the first person to take her outside of herself; to make her laugh, to _charm_ her, in his multitude of dorky ways. He was the best _person _she ever dated.

Sometimes, he even made her forget about Rachel; how desperately and turbulently she loved that _stubborn_ ass of a girl. He made her feel _wanted_, not coveted. Made _her _feel needed instead of _him_.

It was good to see him. Quinn can't help but grin back, Sam's always been infectiously happy. "Hey yourself, mister. How's Kentucky?"

He stuffs both hands in his pockets and puffs out his cheeks. "Well, both parents are employed, I might get a football scholarship, and I don't have to take my clothes off for money. So, that's good. The siblings send their love, by the way. They miss you, even made you this," he says, drawing out a hand-colored card.

"I helped draw the Christmas tree, but don't tell them I told you."

There's a special place in her heart for Sam's siblings. That tiny hotel room taught her more about family, support, and love than all the empty years of her wasted house combined. She forgets, sometimes, how easy it was to have nothing - for the world to fall away at your feet. (She's got a few permanent reminders now: a child and the chair, and she's constantly praying for the ability to deal with it all.)

Quinn loved babysitting for them; it helped her more than it helped them. It wasn't intentional, but Sam's brother and sister help filled a void she'd been teetering around that year, almost falling into the chasm of Beth.

There was no way she could have tried to forget - her body didn't let her. It was easy to loose the baby weight, but she kept lactating months into the fall.

There was no pretending for Quinn. She hid it well, but when her breasts wept and she needed to change her bra, Quinn had to walk out back into the world as if nothing had changed. But inside she'd ache for hours.

She wasn't stupid or delusional enough to consider time with the Evans' _mothering, _but babysitting for blonde children felt _right. _Felt _good._ It was enough to settle her instincts and think that one day, things would be different. That next time, in the future, they could be _hers_.

Holding the card, there's a rush of warmth and love and feels deep in her bones, that she made the right decision to wait the full year. Yale would always be there. Her daughter wouldn't, and she bought herself six more months to be with her.

She pulls Sam down for another hug before he joins the rest of the group. "Thank you, this is wonderful. Give them all hugs for me, I love it." Wiping her eye discreetly, she puts the card in her purse and smiles to herself.

It's a party. Unlike many things she'd been able to do in her life, she tries to enjoy it.

She excuses herself to go to the bathroom, head buzzing, and it takes her twice as long to use the bathroom as it normally does now, (which is already twice as long as it used to be).

Santana greets her when she makes it back to the party. "Welcome back, Roly Poly, we were just about to send a search party. Thought maybe you fell in or something. We're about to do some Ultimate Charades, so get ready to lose because me and Britts _got _this."

"Nuh-uh," Puck yanks the bowl full of charade slips from her hands. "No way in hell you two are allowed to be on the same team. My house, my rules. I pick the teams."

Everyone nods agreeably while Santana surveys the group. "Oh, that's how it's gonna be?" she checks, nodding her head in a way that threatens more than anything else. "Fine, bitches, you wanna play? Let's play. I'm still gonna wipe the floor with you people."

Mercedes is pinching her face and flapping her lips, mimicking Santana. Quinn bites her lip in a valiant effort to contain her grin.

"Ten bucks says otherwise, mamacita."

"You're on, Puckerman."

No one's sure how Mike ends up with the ten dollars, but no one's sober enough to really care. Santana and Brittany had snuck away to "raid the fridge" so really, it's uncertain who wins.

Forty-five minutes later, people are situated for the countdown. Mike and Tina have cozied up together, Brittany and Santana are on the floor leaning against the couch at Quinn's feet. And of _course_ her chair is parked at the end of the couch where Rachel and Finn choose to sit.

Quinn knows body language, she's double-checked hers every conscious moment since she was 14. Rachel and Finn may be holding hands, but there's a distance between them bigger than their height difference.

The awkwardness is palpable and she squirms in her chair, especially knowing what she knows but isn't _supposed _to know. Quinn plays with her cuticles and tries to focus on '_Rockin' New Year's Eve'._

Halfway though a short segment in memoriam for Dick Clark, Rachel abruptly grabs Quinn's hand and clutches it tightly.

Alarmed, Quinn looks over at her, puzzled.

Rachel's eyes are shining and her lips are pressed together.

"What?" Quinn asks tentatively, because she can see the words crowded in Rachel's head (and she's always been afraid of what that means).

"I almost lost you," she chokes. It's barely audible, but for Quinn it's louder than everything, louder than the pulse suddenly pounding like the ocean in her ears.

It's deafening.

Her nose starts prickling without her permission and her eyes begin to tear and it's _not fair_ of Rachel to be doing this. Not here, not now.

She can't think of anything to say, anyway, nothing that would break through the block in her throat. Instead she nods, because she doesn't trust herself to do anything else.

Rachel nods a few times back, as if it can undo everything that's been done. Then she bites her lip and slides her fingers in-between Quinn's, intertwining their hands. The air between them escapes with a soft "ppft" and their palms kiss skin to skin, and Quinn has never felt closer or further away from someone in her entire life.

Rachel turns her head back to the TV where Ryan Seacrest has officially taken over and the countdown TV seems just a little too loud now, the lights flashing in the crowd too glaring, and Quinn blinks in a fog because the only thing she can feel is Rachel's fingers gripping tightly, anchoring her to this moment.

The ball drops, then everyone is cheering and Mike throws confetti, but it goes by in a daze because Rachel is giving her a hug, holding on like she doesn't want to let go. And even though things have been _okay_, and Quinn is learning to breathe without it _hurting_, she doesn't really want to let go either.

By the end of the night, she ends up with the same New Year's Resolution as last year but this time, it doesn't feel nearly as hopeless.


	5. Chapter 5

In accordance with Rachel's New Year's hug request, they meet to hang out while she's home over winter break. It's the first time they've spent so much time together outside of glee rehearsals. Santana refused to "get in on all that crazy," so for now, it's just the two of them.

They meet at Quinn's house, because she needs _some_thing to let her feel in control of the situation, even if there's never been a moment where Quinn feels in control around Rachel.

"It was silly of me I know," says Rachel as she blows on her coffee. "My timing as usual, was impeccable, but I just felt you needed to know it's never left me. It's selfish of me to even say that, I know, but it's not like I could have ever forgotten about you, Quinn. It's just….been a rough year and I really haven't been the friend I should be."

Quinn bites her tongue because there's a lot of things she could say right now, but none of them appropriate. Before she can even ask if things are okay, Rachel barks out a dark laugh. "God, look at me, I'm doing it again," she mutters, picking at a napkin.

It hurts seeing her so forlorn and miserable, so Quinn clears her throat, "All right, let's start over. Hi, Rachel, how was your first semester?"

Rachel gives her a thankful smile over the coffee cup and Quinn is relieved to see it reach her eyes.

"Finn and I have been having some problems," Rachel blurts out, clamping her mouth shut as if almost surprised at her own words.

"I know." Quinn reveals after a deep breath.

Rachel's brow furrows, "You…know? How? I haven't told anyone outside of my dads."

It's a do-or-die moment that could ruin everything forever, but Quinn has yet to lie about the important things to Rachel and she's not going to start now. "I saw you," she admits. "In the library."

"But...that was months ago," she recalls, "And it wasn't on break. Why were _you_ there?"

Quinn takes a deep breath, because outside of Santana and Brittany, no one knows. She couldn't bear to bring the issue up again, not after everything, and it's not like deferment comes up in casual conversation. While not ashamed of what she had to do, she's still had enough of their pity to last a lifetime. There are a few kinds of conversations in her life she never wanted to have and this is one of them.

"I work there."

Quinn counts her heartbeats in the silence, waiting for them to explode.

"What? What do you mean you work at the library, Quinn," Rachel shakes her head disbelievingly.

"I've been working there since September."

"That's impossible, you're in Connecticut."

Quinn bites her lip and watches, waiting for Rachel to put the pieces together.

As realization dawns on her face, Rachel's face crumples, "Oh, Quinn, you didn't!"

"Only for a year," she attempts to clarify, trying to hold onto her composure.

"But why didn't you _tell_ anyone, why didn't you tell _me?_"

"Because you're the last person I wanted to tell, okay?" she erupts. Rachel sits there stunned, and Quinn tries to settle the anger into a simmer because it's not Rachel's fault, this time. She continues more softly, "So I just didn't tell _anyone_. Except Santana. And Brittany, obviously."

"Quinn-" Rachel starts and Quinn can see the pity in her eyes.

"No," she interrupts, pointing her finger at Rachel. "_That's_ not helping, I don't wanna hear it. _That_ is exactly whyI didn't want people to know. I'm stuck in Lima in this _chair,_ the last thing I need is more _pity_."

Quinn drops her head and circles the top of the cup with her fingers (wine glasses and tumblers had been thrown out long ago, better gone than tempting), too upset to look at Rachel. This was exactly what she wanted to avoid. But sometimes there's no turning back, like going to get a bridesmaid's dress, and Quinn's made her choice. This was bound to happen, sooner or later. She just never wanted it to be this _hard._

Rachel inhales loudly through her nose and straightens up in her chair. "So, my marriage is falling apart and you're not at Yale. I think we're officially caught up on the big things, don't you?" Rachel's smile is gentle and teasing, and despite all her dramatics, the important things Rachel always gets right. At least when it comes to Quinn.

She's been doing it for years, and having felt it again for the first time in a long while, the restless thing inside Quinn settles.

So when Sam calls a few days later, crying, she's ready.

"Hey, Q?" Sam's voice is small and immediately, she knows.

"What's wrong," she asks.

There's a deep breath at the other end of the phone, and when Sam finally speaks, it comes out shakily. "It's not about me, I know, but God, Quinn, how many times does a guy have to lose his job before his son gets to go to college? We were so _close_."

She's never been much for oversentimentalizing- it was pounded out of her once she was too old to play with dolls. Sometimes she feels like a soldier, tied so tightly to action and reaction that she seems so cold and detached; unfeeling. It's the only way she's managed to last this long, though, when life seems like an endless war.

"When?" she asks.

"When I got home, after the party a few days ago. I walked in on them "discussing things" at the kitchen table. We're gonna be okay, for a little while, but there's no savings, and depending on how things go, I might have to pass up the scholarship and work for a while."

She can almost _feel_ him running his hands through his hair. Her chair sits heavy all of a sudden, like she forgot it was part of her now and in a rush, the past few months flash by.

She knows what she has to do.

"It's gonna be okay, Sam."

His voice sounds like it did the day she knocked on the motel room door for the first time, "But how do you know?"

"Because I'm doing the same thing."

He does that laugh from Ferris Bueller, the dark guffaw Cameron barks out in the kitchen, the one that Quinn hadn't known about and he'd immediately queued up the DVD excitedly and did it pitch-perfectly. "Wait, what?No way, Fabray."

She waits, the silence transmitting the seriousness of what she said.

"Holy shit, you're serious."

She nods, even though he can't see. "Yep."

"How long?"

"I never went." To save him the difficulty of asking, she adds, "I will, but couldn't then, there was just no way. You're the third person who knows aside from Rachel, Brittany, and Santana, but I count the two of them together. I don't think it matters now, really, who else finds out."

"Wow, Quinn, I had no idea. I'm so sorry."

Because she's hugged him when he's cried and Sam's done the same for her, (even though she'd never tell him _why, _he was always good enough to not ask) she knows what he's _really _apologizing for (for not having been there, for her having to tell people in the first place, for her being so _alone_) and this apology soothes instead of bristles.

"It's okay," she assures him as well as herself. "It really is. So, look, I know it's going to be okay for you, Sam, because _I'm _here."

The words taste like a lie, but upon a moment of reflection, settles into a truth. She feels stronger having just said it because the reality of things sometimes overwhelm her, but- things are _okay_ and she's still _here _and it's more than she could have said a year ago.

"Because I just got the hang of changing my own _pants_ a few months ago. Because of all people, _I _should know. It's not going to be easy, but it's going to be okay. It...passes quickly," she reflects. "More quickly than I thought it would."

From there, it's easier. Lighter. They're a little bit more the same now, less like Barbie & Ken and more like Raggedy Ann & Andy.

She really couldn't be more thankful she has a Sam Evans in her life. Most people aren't so lucky. When she hangs up the phone later, Quinn hopes that one day, despite everything about herself, someone might say that about her.


	6. Chapter 6

It's not like she doesn't think about it. February can't sneak up on her; it's about as subtle as a truck and for that, there is no metaphor.

Quinn deals in facts; she accepts them and moves on. Feelings though, are an entirely different matter. Her head and heart don't interact because if they did, they'd collapse upon the gravity of their own weight and Quinn would get sucked into the black hole left in their wake.

She can't can't afford that.

Dread starts seeping into her bones, spreading slick like oil, thick and heavy and even just by the beginning of February, Quinn feels like she's about to lose it.

She's been pushing back the panic attacks, keeping them at bay, because the dates don't match. If it's not the 21st, she can't break down because it's not the actual anniversary yet. Quinn's always been familiar and comfortable with denial, and she's desperate enough to use it in order to endure the next few weeks.

Lucy was always desperately afraid of bees. Not because they stung and it hurt, that was the least of it. It was the anticipation. _Waiting_ for the sting hurt much worse than _actually_ being stung. The buzzing put her on edge and she'd freeze, seize up, was caught in fear for what was about to happen.

Lucy knew what she was and, more importantly, what she _wasn't. _There was always an underlying stubbornness in Quinn, an unwillingness to fail. She always _had_ to strive for something to be better at, to postpone that eventual sting. Lucy knew she was everything her sister, mother, and father weren't. It was only a matter of time before it was a gym membership, nose job, and dye job away to avoid being stung. It's part of what made growing up in her house so much more difficult than it already was- waiting for that perpetual sting: for the disappointment, next diet plan, or unachievable existence. Her whole life she'd been shifting and it's exhausting. She was cracking at the edges.

February is a like giant bee. And with each passing day, the hive grew larger into a swarming buzz and the panic threatened to consume her whole, it was almost claustrophobic. She couldn't help it.

Almost dying had that effect on her.

Its crippling to the point where nothing helps. She can't possibly busy herself enough; her mind and the heart are coming perilously close to one another.

Her chest seizes when she plays with Beth and no amount of Sesame Street or peekaboo will make it go away. She can't shelve enough books or file enough paperwork to calm her heartbeat. She can't run like she used to. She can't clear her mind. She cannot occupy or busy it, and she feels it crawling under her flesh like beetles.

When the doorbell rings on the Tuesday morningthe day _before_, she's damn near crawling out of her skin.

Her arms are shaking much the way they did after her first week of physical therapy except something as mundane as the door seems to be her limit this time. She hears a bag drop to the ground and two seconds later, Sam drops to a knee and pulls her into a hug before she even registers what's happened.

He's strong and steady, and she feels _safe_, as if he'd pulled her out of the car in time.

She chokes out a laugh, because that's what happens when she's borderline hysterical, and she clutches fistfuls of his shirt tightly in her fingers, holding on with every fiber of her being.

"I was building up the courage to do this the whole drive here," he jokes. "You're like a Wookie, I didn't want to get my head ripped off. Or my arm, I need that for football."

She doesn't realize she's crying until her cheeks feel wet, (but it's not really surprising given she barely feels in control of anything these days, least of all her body) because God sent Sam Evans to her doorstep when she needed someone most. He's like the relief of the ocean when the pain is almost too much to bear after walking barefoot across the burning sand.

He saved her from herself. Just in time.

She wipes her eyes sloppily and reluctantly lets go as Sam straightens up.

There are a million thanks on the edge of her lips but Sam seems them before they exist. "C'mon," he says smiling, hoisting the bag over his shoulder, "You can cry and talk. Or, more likely, cry and not talk. I prepared for either situation," he says, whipping out a stack of DVDs as proof.

Once in the foyer he cranes his head and remarks, "It's been, like, forever since I've been here. Does your mom still make those low-fat yogurt parfaits?"

In the end, they find refuge on the couch and a Pixar marathon. She lays into Sam's side on the couch, the chair nowhere in sight, relishing in feeling like this is a normal activity people do that she finally understands. The silence is soothing and is punctuated with Sam's movie trivia (of which Quinn could care less about aside from the fact that he loves sharing it in the first place). He's warm and soft, and she takes comfort in not having to reply to questions she doesn't know the answers to.

Mr. Incredible shouts on the screen and she tries not to flinch, the hero unavoidably reminding her of another big, blonde father she once thought was a superhero, too. Quinn is Violet, flickering invisible, but never for the right reasons. She snuggles further into Sam.

Whether Sam's friendship happened through accident or design, she doesn't know. But she won't let him go as easily as he seemed to fall into her lap (and by easy, she means not at all because in what world is what either of them have gone through considered _easy) _ because this is something she _needs_ now. He's a part of her as much as breathing, Beth, or the wheelchair. They're too wrapped up together, now.

She doesn't realize she's fallen asleep until the phone rings and it's Brittany calling to say she was worried when Quinn didn't show up for tutoring, but then remembered what day it was. Guilt swells for a moment but Brittany disarms her completely, "I love you, and even though you probably don't want a hug because you're a cactus, I'm sending one anyway. Santana also said 'make sure she doesn't go off the deep end', but you don't swim anymore, so I'm not exactly sure what she means but I think it means she loves you too. Especially today. I'm so glad you didn't die."

The dial tone drones in her ear and she must look stunned because Sam asks what happened. "Brittany," she replies because it's answer enough.

Sam nods knowingly and remarks, "Sometimes I'm not sure if she's smarter than all of us or dumber, or both and is like, a 5th dimensional being or something."

She quirks an eyebrow and without missing a beat he says, "We're adding Men In Black III to the list because Griffin is totally awesome."

Later, (after having gone to bed filled with Thai food and more movies) she's lying in bed having stared at the ceiling for hours in the dark, unblinking and unfeeling, teetering on the edge of _something_. It's been hours, and if this is her one day to be selfish, she decides she's going to take advantage of it. She wheels down the dim hallway to the guest room. Trying not to over-think it, she takes a deep breath before she changes her mind and gently knocks on the door. "Come in," she hears, and Sam's sitting up in bed with a book on his lap.

She bites her lip, because her track record for this is pretty deplorable and she's _afraid._

He's looking at her without question or judgement, as if he's just waiting for her to catch up with herself and she trembles under the wake of it. Even if she doesn't trust herself, she trusts _him_ so allows herself to softly blurt out, "Can you hold me?"

Despite his kindness, the words feel foreign and she knows there should be a part of her that's screaming against the kind of vulnerability she's refused for so long. But mostly Quinn feels so weary in her _ache_ that she just want to surrender. And he's the safest harbor she knows.

Shyness overtakes her in this naked moment so she clears her throat and adds, "For a little while," her voice tilting up at the end as if it's still a question she needs answering.

Wordlessly he moves to make a space for her, patting the space next to him invitingly.

She locks the chair next to the bed and lifts herself into the bed, maneuvering her legs into place. She's not ashamed- but having someone see the inner workings of this part of her life makes her feel exposed in a way she's been avoiding since she was 12.

"Didn't take you much for a Kerouac reader," she mumbles, trying to pull the attention away from herself as she snuggles back into him.

He clears his throat. "It's for school. I mean, I know I'm slow and reading isn't my strong suit, but it's taking me for_ever_ to get through this thing."

"Read it to me?"

She falls asleep, his voice and the rhythm of the words like the ocean. The darkness of her sleep is smooth and comforting, not angry, sharp, and fearful. Quinn wakes up in the morning more rested than she has in weeks and it feels like days have passed. She keeps her eyes closed, luxuriating in the moment, before realizing she's still in the guest room.

Twisting around, she sees Sam's head cocked to the side and his mouth wide open, Kerouac lying on his chest. She smiles.

Sunlight pours in through the window and it's warm instead of stark. She stretches, joints pop and muscles flex, and she feels….refreshed. She's passed through the storm.

She breathes, and another day begins.


	7. Chapter 7

"We're getting a divorce."

Quinn's eyebrows shoot up. "Hello to you too, Rachel."

"After months and months of couple's therapy, active listening, and so many compromises…." Rachel trails off, "It's just not going to work out."

Though a part of her had half-expected this months ago, it's been lying dormant for so long that Quinn can't help but be rocked by the news. She can't help her eyebrows from rising or the soft "Oh," that escapes. _"Oh,"_ as if it's the final piece of a truth long known but not admitted. A relieved but nevertheless disappointed _"Oh,"_of a future lost but never deserved; a sad, near-miss.

Quinn never wanted this for her. While Finn Hudson might not have been the knight in shining armor Rachel deserved, Rachel had still hoped he was, and no matter how much the fair maiden wishes, some fairy tales just don't make it to "The End."

"Anyway," Rachel continues in a voice too matter-of-fact to be healthy, "We have a habit of being honest with each other, and especially after New Year's I wanted you to know first."

In the space between Quinn's silence, (because there are too many conversations in her life that are too complicated to know how to navigate, and yet she finds herself in one yet again) she can hear Rachel plastering on the persona everyone expects - the positive one where everything is smiles and moving forward. Quinn knows because she's been using similar tactics since she was a little girl. Except Rachel tries to be strong for herself and Quinn tried because she had no other choice.

She can hear the strain in Rachel's voice; it's a faint underlying sound of a single instrument in an orchestra and Quinn aches as the anxiety from New York seems closer to her heart than six hundred miles away.

She's struggling to dominate the storming feelings within, trying to ignore sentiment and focus on the issue at hand. Quinn's learned to try and not put stock into her emotions - too many times they fail her one way or another in the end.

"And how does Finn feel about all this?" she manages to croak.

"He's…" Rachel pauses uncertainly. "Patience has never been his strong suit, but in the end I think he realized we just can't fit into each others' lives."

"So what happens next?"

"Well," Rachel draws out, "We get lawyers, file papers, and wait for it all to clear. And then I spend some time off in Lima."

It takes a half second for everything to register before Quinn states flatly, "What? No."

"Excuse me?"

"Do you really think that's the best idea?"

"Of course I do, don't you think I've thought about this?"

"Well, I mean, have you?" Quinn pushes, irritation leeching out. "I know it's been a difficult year- _trust _me, _**I**__ know, _remember? I'm not trying to discount what you're going through, but Rachel, it's a long time. Once you do it, there's no going back. It's not the right decision for everyone."

"It's only a few months, Quinn," Rachel reasons, "There's going to be a lot of legal matters to take care of in Lima and it's been an emotionally turbulent year. I'll need time to recoup."

"I get needing time, I do. But you'll have all summer. That's going to be more than enough time."

"But what if it isn't?" counters Rachel.

"Then being busy will be better for you!" Quinn shouts. "What are you gonna do, sit here and sing songs with your dads for twelve more months, sign a paper here and there?"

"Okay, that was incredibly offensive, we do not sit and sing songs all day."

"Well, I'm sorry, but what do you want from me, Rachel?" she retorts irritably, "The world won't stop turning for you, and I'm pretty sure in your line of work, 'behind' isn't a place you want to be."

"Just because _you're _stuck in Lima doesn't mean I'm going let it happen to me," Rachel snaps back, knowing in an instant she'd gone too far.

There's dead silence over the phone.

"Quinn, I-" Rachel stammers before being cut off.

"Save it. We're done," her voice is cold. "And if you're going to be the idiot that lets a boy fuck up your life, then I didn't know you at all," she finishes before hanging up the phone.

The anger thunders through her veins (she remembers when it was simple and just meant being torn between wanting to kiss Rachel or slap her) and Quinn clenches her fists tightly before grabbing the phone in a rage and throws it across the room with a snarl. It lands unceremoniously with a thump on the couch and Quinn deflates.

_Great. That went well. _


	8. Chapter 8

By the time Quinn wakes up the next morning, there are two missed calls on her phone. She's too blistered to handle listening to the voicemails. Just like her 14th birthday (because who was celebrating, Lucy or Quinn?), they go largely ignored.

She spends most of the week being irritated and it lingers, so she spends the half hour of her work breaks just rolling through the aisles, doing shelf checks. Every once in a while, items go missing. People don't put books back in the right spot, leave them sitting out or shoving them on shelves they don't belong.

She almost misses it, distracted as she is, but three books from the end of a row she spots an item that's out of order. Misplaced; just like her. It's a thick, green-bound book and as she pulls it off the shelf, the cover pulls away from the spine.

Her whole being lurches, though it's just a small tear, and she cradles the book delicately, like an eggshell. Opening it to analyze the tear, the endsheet cracks, pages tearing at the spine, and Quinn shuts it in an instant, determined to not make things worse.

When she hands the book to Joan, gently as a baby bird, the worry in her eyes must be evident because Joan says with a smile, "It's okay. Calm down, Wall-E, this kind of thing happens all the time."

Quinn's seen her share of books. She knows what happens when pages get yellow, old paperbacks at home having been dog-eared only to snap off or pages to fall out, tear, or chip, brittle and worn. But she's never known why: why things she loves corrode and weaken and slowly fall apart. "Why does it do that?"

"What, fall apart?"

Quinn's hesitant because Joan, though a lovely woman, has been known to not know how to stop talking. But she ventures to ask anyway because this is a mystery that needs answering.

"Yeah, I mean, why does the paper brown? I've always seen it, but why does it happen?"

"Well," Joan begins, "Depends what the paper's made out of. Lignin, a part of wood, deteriorates quickly, making the paper brittle. But it turns brown because the molecules change shape. They refract light differently, which is why it looks yellow instead of white. A lot of it also has to do with when it was made. When people started using wood to make paper, they didn't know that what they were using had acids in it. Like bleaches that react with humidity change into acids over time. Eats the paper from the inside."

Joan turns the book over in her hands, inspecting the binding, lifting pages, testing its strength.

"So most of the books sold? They use the cheap acid paper because who cares if it falls apart, just spend fifteen bucks to get a new one. Sucks for us, though. No matter what we do, books are slowly falling apart and we can't do anything about it."

It's a menacing thought and she feels less safe, now that the only things housed in this building anymore are carcasses. Dead things, rotting, slowly. And she's helpless to stop it.

Joan places the book onto a growing pile of other library books to throw away on her desk, but Quinn can't stop staring at it. The deaccessioned things. Outliving their usefulness, to be sold or tossed. That was life in the Fabray household for a long time. She'd been on that pile once, deaccessioned from a family, as if it were so simple. Plucked and discarded, deemed unfit.

She's quieter than normal on the ride home. Judy asks if she's all right and Quinn tries not think back to that night when Judy _didn't_ say anything. Swallowing it down, she just says she's tired instead. There's a package on the kitchen table when they arrive back home.

"What's this?" Quinn asks.

"That came in the mail today," Judy says through a glass of mango juice (orange and grapefruit had been banned after the mimosa incident of 2011).

It bears New York postage and barely noticeable stars drawn in yellow highlighter. Quinn smiles despite herself. She hasn't spoken to Rachel since that phone call last week.

But this package she can't ignore, it has _stars _on it for crying out loud. It's the boldness of Rachel Berry without the sometimes grating manner. Rachel's always skirted the line between selfish and selfless, but in inappropriate amounts and at inappropriate times. Frankly, part of Quinn was surprised Rachel didn't show up here herself. New York has been good for her. Just as Quinn always expected it would be.

Green foam pokes out of a corner as Quinn opens the package. A minute later she pulls out a Statue of Liberty crown followed by six blank postcards, a book, and a CD. A note flutters out and Quinn lets out a sigh of relief that there's no glitter confetti.

"Dear Quinn,

I'm sending you a little bit of New York. The smell of the bagel shop down the street couldn't be bottled, but the postcard should give you an idea of what it looks like. The CD is only 25% me singing (because I'm maturing) and it wouldn't be a Rachel Berry package without some music.

I just want you to know I'm sorry. You didn't deserve me snapping at you. I've always trusted you to be honest with me, and when I need it the most is when it's hardest to hear. I get stubborn because I don't want things to be true. You didn't deserve me snapping at you. I was lashing out at myself, but you and your truth got caught up instead. I am so, so sorry, Quinn.

Words have always been sharp between us in the past, on both sides, but I hope that from now on, they can be softer.

Thank you,

Rachel"

Quinn clutches the letter tightly for a moment, the words melting slowly into her being, warming from the inside.

Her heartbeat swells and is erratic, her chest not quite knowing how to contain it anymore. She gives herself a moment, then picks up the phone.


	9. Futurelude: Roughly 8 years ahead

**Note: This chapter was written as an exercise because I was stuck on another chapter. Takes place in the same 'verse, just in the future. It's a glimpse into the future, a look down the line. Regular chapters will follow.**

* * *

"Excuse me," Quinn hears politely from her desk. She looks up to find nothing there, only the bookshelves as usual with the library cafe in the background corner.

"Excuse me," comes the tiny voice again. Quinn sits up straight and arches her neck, finally seeing the top of a small head.

"Hi there," she smiles at the child, who must be no more than five years old. The girl has pigtails, is wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt decorated with fish, and is holding a book that's the size of her entire torso.

"I'm Molly. Can you help me?"

"Sure, what do you need?"

"Well," the girl begins in a very matter-of-fact tone, "I got this book," she gestures downwards, "But, there's another one I want and I can't reach it."

"Well, it's super impressive you got that one all by yourself! Let me just go page someone to come help you, ok?"

"Why can't you do it," Molly asks innocently, "You're nice and have really white teeth."

Quinn balks, her eyes flickering to the stairs across the desk behind the girl. She bites her lip, weighing denying a little girl for no real reason against staying behind the safety of the desk.

But then there are Bambi eyes and tiny red sneakers that pull at Quinn from somewhere within and she sighs.

"C'mon," she says nodding toward the elevator, "Let's go. I know a special shortcut."

"Why are we taking the escalator?" Quinn smiles softly at the girl's word confusion. "Mommy always says it's better to take the stairs."

"Well," Quinn starts as she wheels out from behind the desk, "A long time ago, I had an accident and now I can't walk."

Molly's eyes grow wide, "Did it hurt?"

"Yeah," Quinn nods, "A lot. But now I'm okay, see? I just take more rides. Which is why," Quinn pauses dramatically as she pushes the elevator button, "We get to take the super secret way to go upstairs."

"Like spies?" she asks excitedly with a smile. Quinn chuckles, "Yes, like spies."

By the time the elevator door opens on the second floor, having bounced excitedly during the forty seconds it took to go up, Molly dashes out towards the bookshelves, passing the computers and ladybug couches.

Quinn makes her way to where Molly is waiting, leafing through the shelf. "Here it is!" she points.

The smile on Quinn's face blanches for a moment when she sees how high the shelf the book is on: she still can't quite reach it. But with one glance to Molly's beaming face as she looks excitedly at the book, instinct trumps _Quinn_ and the seas calm with a sudden clarity. Quinn rolls to a stop in front of the shelf and locks the chair, raising her arms and gesturing with open palms to Molly. "Hop up," Quinn says, patting her lap.

"Will it hurt?" Molly hesitates, her arm hovering over Quinn's knee.

"Not one bit," she reassures.

Molly scrambles up, gently standing on Quinn's legs. Quinn's arms hover behind Molly's back as she reaches up, pulls the coveted book from the shelf, and sits back down. "We got it!" She announces triumphantly. Quinn smiles back, hoisting Molly by the armpits until she's back on the ground. "We did! Good job," they celebrate with a high five.

"Thank you," Molly imparts with a hug before leaving and Quinn is struck by how _okay_ she feels. She let's it seep, warming from the inside like a cup of tea.

Rachel gets home from work a few hours later and Quinn is sitting on the couch, curled up under a blanket, book on her lap.

"Hey," Rachel greets warmly as she dumps her keys in the dish next to the door.

"Hey," Quinn returns softly, her voice a little raspy from disuse. "How was work?"

"Good," Rachel kisses Quinn hello before shrugging off her coat and walking into the kitchen.

"What's that smile for," Rachel teases lightheartedly as she pulls the fridge open, "It looks like you know a big secret and I don't."

Quinn is confident and calm, gentle like the tides, "Let's have kids."

The fridge shuts. Rachel stands stunned, her face crumpled in a hopeful blossom. "Are you serious?" she almost whispers.

Quinn's eyes are shining, smile full to the brim as she nods, the anchor inside grounding ashore.

"I'm ready."


	10. Chapter 9

**Author's note: This story now resumes from where it left off in Chapter 8. **

* * *

If there's anywhere Quinn feels like she doesn't belong, it's here in this room.

Finn, sitting next to Carole, is shrugging uncomfortably in his suit and Quinn is an inappropriate witness here (or the perfect one, really, in a messed-up kind of way), sandwiched uncomfortably between them and the heat on her face.

She stares at the bench in front of her and traces patterns in the wood, trying to disappear between the grains.

But the heat of Carole's gaze still prickles on the side of her face and for the hundredth time, Quinn glances at her watch and for the thousandth time is disappointed by the answer it gives.

She's sitting as close to the door as possible, as if it's mere presence can assuage the claustrophobia from squeezing tight.

It's one reason why she couldn't get into Harry Potter, because twenty pages into it was met with the idea of being locked in a cupboard under the stairs and it sent her reeling. Lucy never felt like there was room enough to breathe as is and had slammed the book shut.

Rooms just kept getting smaller after that.

Every clack of the stenographer's keys punctuates the very air and Quinn flinches, unable to stop the sweat from breaking out itchily under her collar.

She checks her watch again. Time stops in the courtroom and despite the soothing purple of Rachel's father's cashmere sweater, part of her (like always) regrets saying yes to Rachel.

_It had been early enough in the morning for it to be light out, but it was an oozing grey that seemed to neither shine nor glow but casts everything in the same, sickly pallor. At 7:15 am, Rachel is standing on the doorstep and Quinn sags in her chair, her morning routine having been interrupted by the doorbell. Rachel's smiling, albeit a bit vacantly, the coffee and pastry bags underneath doing nothing to bely the request on the tip of her tongue._

_"I thought I needed a witness. For the divorce," she clarifies. "I don't, but I-" she bites her lip, looking incredibly shy for a girl who just showed up unannounced at the crack of dawn. "I still can't see you not being there," she admits. _

_The coffee is bitter, but that's a taste Quinn's always familiar with, and she finds herself once again helplessly succumbing to whatever Rachel asks of her. _

_It started that day in the hallway, with a pleading look and a self-hating inability so say 'no'. Quinn's put herself on the line for Rachel and Finn time and again, though it's yielded increasingly painful consequences. It's brought them full circle back to this moment and not for the first time, she feels the ghost of feeling in her legs, but it fades with the morning grey. _

_"Will you come with me?"_

_"Of course," (Of course, I'll come with you, Rachel) Quinn says, though Rachel is blind to the Truth of the answer._

All in all, it doesn't actually take that long. They're in and out in less than two hours, and finally it's done; an amicable split that took three years too long.

"It feels so sudden," Rachel admits. "I mean, it's been going on for months now, but I can't believe it's over," her voice sounds hollow as they sit next to each other on the bench outside the courtroom. Rachel's parents are talking with Finn and Carole at the other end of the hall and it's just the two of them on the bench outside the courtroom. (Flashes of another bench in another hallway at another time flash through Quinn's mind, and it feels like forever ago.)

Not for the first time, Quinn's having a difficult time trying to separate parts of her life with Rachel's, as if they can be parsed out of a milky essence, and she's caught wishing she had a measure of the closure Rachel's just received.

There was no courtroom officiating a divorce for her. It took months of all of Judy's strength to not go collapse on a bottle and Quinn skipping evening plans to be at home - to simply be a presence; a reason for her mother to not grab a glass.

Quinn had gotten a half hour and a microwave timer. Russell slid from her life, slinking a thief in the middle of the night. She never got the dignity to see him go. Her and Russell simply…switched places, passing like ships in the night.

"It's always sudden," Quinn finds herself muttering. Rachel's stare burns but she can't tear her eyes away from the floor tiles.

She can hear Rachel digging into her bag, and suddenly a neatly wrapped present invades her vision and is placed on her lap. Quinn looks over at her, puzzled.

"Thank you," Rachel says softly, gratefully. "I know I'm not always the most…" she trails off, struggling. "Well. I just wanted to thank you. For always being here for me, even when you might not want to. Or when I didn't deserve it. I know today was hard, and….thanks."

"I asked one of the librarians for a recommendation. She said you might enjoy the language."

It's not the first gift Quinn's gotten. It's just one of the few that mean anything. One of the rare gifts with _Quinn_ in mind and not someone else; who people wanted her to be, who_ she_ thought she was supposed to be. Its the first one from Rachel she's been able to hold in her hands - _tangible._

Between thinking about her father and Rachel giving her presents, the emotional overload from the day is coming to a head. The walls feel tight, breath feels scarce and Quinn needs an out.

She didn't think it'd be in the form of Finn Hudson. Well, she did once, back when she tried to cover up one lie with a hundred others to make it work. But the past two years have made all that seem like a schoolyard dream - he was a different person.

Then again, so was she.

Rachel makes a quiet escape, sliding off to her dads leaving Quinn alone with the present heavy in her hands.

"Hey," he starts awkwardly.

"Hey," she says blankly back. For the first time, she finds she doesn't know what he wants from her. It was all so _simple_ before.

"Guess we never really thought we'd be here like this, huh," he laughs hollowly, scratching his head. Quinn feels very, very small with Finn towering over her. Like a skyscraper; like the idea of a future looming ahead, as paralyzed as she is. Everything about this day has been backwards; for who was supposed to be married to whom, and how lives got twisted together in unexpected ways.

"Please sit down," she begs, unable to look him in the eye without the pressure coming from all sides.

"Sorry, I just- I know it's like, super weird and all, but thanks for being here. For her, at least, I mean."

With him next to her on the bench, the walls seem smaller and she lets out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"I kind of…accepted this whole thing months ago," he admits tiredly. "Like, how the hell was I supposed to ever be good enough for her?"

"Don't say that."

"What? It's true, everybody knows it."

"I used to think that about myself with you. With Sam."

He snorts, "Yeah, look how well that turned out. We were like Team Cheating."

"That's not the point," Quinn says exasperatedly and with more than a little bit of shame. "It's not-" She purses her lips and tries again."_Good enough_ isn't how it works, Finn."

She wonders if people can hear her lying through her teeth. But Quinn is corrosive, like paper, turning things acid-ridden and brittle just by the nature of what it is. Unavoidably reacting with air, turning everything around her, even the moisture in the air, into a destructive force. The rules don't apply to her; they never have.

"Yeah, well," he trails off, closure dissipating into the air. "She's better than us, that's for sure."

A knot twists deep in Quinn's stomach and branches up her throat. She can't find room to argue.

A knowing takes place in the echoing silence between her and Finn; that they are the same. Though from their own emptinesses comes an understanding that for Quinn, it was always a question of "Who wasn't?"


End file.
